Style

You probably know that bonsai are the miniaturized versions of the big, aged trees found in nature. But do you know that bonsai have their miniature versions as well? These bonsai trees are commonly known as shohin bonsai and mame bonsai. “Shohin” is a Japanese word. It means “tiny thing” and in the bonsai world,[continue reading…]

Since my first bonsai class, I have learned that there are two distinct regional variations in Chinese bonsai (penjing) – the Southern style and the Northern style. My teacher kept telling us that the Southern style is the better one, and I always thought what he said was a bias statement that purely based on[continue reading…]

As said earlier in another post – Chinese Penjing & Japanese Bonsai, the main difference between bonsai and penjing (or Chinese bonsai) is one of scope. While Japanese bonsai is about perfecting a miniature tree in the container, Chinese penjing is about creating natural scenes using different elements of nature like rocks, stones, water, sand,[continue reading…]

Let’s start from the basic understanding of the words, “bonsai,” (Japanese) and “penjing” (Mandarin). “Bonsai” (盆栽) is a Japanese term meaning “tree in a pot “, and “penjing” (盆景) is a Chinese term meaning “landscape in a pot”. With the meanings of these two terms, we have a hint that the Chinese penjing is more[continue reading…]